Loving husband of Mary Olwen Russell and father to Robert Sexton (b.1938) and Jack Arthur (b.1944)

Arthur grew up as one of a family of 8 children in the centre of Glasgow. The family were neither poor nor rich but by standards of the day were comfortably well off. Arthur’s father was a publician.

He was a slightly built boy but that did not stop him winning Cub Scout of the Year and a silver medal as well as a silver Boys Brigade Medal and the Junior Imperialist Union silver Cup for Efficiency 1932-33 too. He was always involved and busy. Leaving school at 14 Arthur set about educating himself and studied at night school until he qualified as an accountant (AACCA). That qualification took him to work for Dorman Long the large civil engineering company who sent Arthur, in 1936, to Ebbw Vale in Wales with a management team to build one of the country’s largest steelworks of the day. In Ebbw Vale he met and married Mary Olwen (Olwyn) Sexton and they moved in 1938 with a very young son Robert to London where Arthur was part of the management team who supervised the building of Battersea Power Station. All through this period Arthur was embroiled in politics and was a fervent Conservative.

When Hitler interrupted their lives by dropping bombs in London Olwen and Robert moved swiftly back to the safety of the Welsh Valleys, followed closely by Arthur. During the war he organised National Savings drives and was very active in the community as well as earning the privilege of being nominated as Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Pontypool in the post War elections. In a Labour stronghold like the Welsh valleys he was lucky not to lose his deposit but he proved his point when he eroded the sitting MP’s majority significantly. At the next election he was promoted to an almost winnable, but still difficult, constituency of West Gloucester for the 1951 election. He lost that by the narrowest of margins after three recounts and never stood again even though he was offered a safe seat next time for his efforts.

For many years he worked as Chief Accountant for Guest Keen and Nettlefolds in Cwmbran. Today, just as dustmen were called refuse disposal operatives his title would have been financial director. They supported him when his political ambitions inevitably meant many days away from work but of course it suited them to have a potential MP on their hands so their interest was not completely altruistic.

Despite many requests to become involved in County Council politics Arthur had left all that behind him. He moved to Cashmores in the 60s but left there to take over as Managing Director of a local firm at the behest of the owner. Sadly family politics did what national and local politics never could and Arthur left that company disillusioned with the nepotism and waste that often surrounds family concerns, however prosperous. His wife, Olwen, died in 1967 after a two year battle with cancer. The stress and strain of running Olwen’s business and the breakdown of his most recent job left him a weakened man. He had his first heart attack while driving home and subsequent events proved it to have been much more damaging than at first thought. He died in January 1970 after having delivered the address ‘Tae a Haggis’ at the local Burns Night black-tie dinner for the Caledonian Society. His death at 59 was a severe blow to all those who he had helped and those who loved him. He was revered locally by friends and political enemies alike who saw in him the kind of hands-on honest politician who spoke from the heart and who gave everything he had to every enterprise he ever undertook.

Jack Russell, Son